Pre-Draft Training Roster for Barwis Methods
According to Mike Barwis, the following Michigan seniors will conduct their pre-NFL draft training at Barwis Methods in Plymouth:
David Molk, Mike Martin, Kevin Koger, Ryan Van Bergen, and Steve Watson
This exchange occurred after I modified a tweet by Kyle Bogenschutz of GoBlueWolverine.com.
MGoShoe MT KyleBogie Dave Molk plans to train with Mike Barwis at @barwismethods in Plymouth when he begins preparation for the NFL combine/draftBarwisMethods MGoShoe KyleBogie He is a great young man. We will train Molk, Martin, Koger, VanBergan, and Watson. Great guys, nice to work with my boysMGoShoe BarwisMethods KyleBogie I foresee some combine records from Molk and Martin w/ their work ethic and your motivation and training.BarwisMethods MGoShoe KyleBogie They are all great guys. They have tremendous work ethics. It's nice to be able to help them again. God Bless.
No doubt they will all be as prepared as possible for the combine and/or the Michigan scout day.
January 1st, 2012 at 4:18 PM ^
Thanks for sharing this - I wish our seniors well in the NFL no matter where they end up. They will always be Wolverines.
Sidenote: I actually ran into Barwis while patrolling a circuit after a storm. Unwittingly, we found ourselves in his subdivision.
January 1st, 2012 at 4:19 PM ^
Molk's ferocity + Wolves? SHEEEEIT.
January 1st, 2012 at 4:21 PM ^
Enough said.
I know injuries are somewhat random events, but last year I was really starting to question his "prehab" talk. Maybe we were just unlucky, I dunno. But he will be great to train with before the draft, and best of luck to all these boys in the upcoming draft.
January 1st, 2012 at 4:37 PM ^
I feel bad for them. Everyone he touches gets injured.
January 1st, 2012 at 5:32 PM ^
Troy Woolfolk would never have gotten injured but for Barwis. I just want to know when Barwis snuck in and hexed Will Heininger's sprained foot last week. And how Barwis managed to infect Denard's forearm with staph this year. The most devilish thing of all is how Barwis arranged to have a Spartan chop-block Mike Martin last year, because that was probably the toughest injury of the year. David Molk, whose injury was probably the team's toughest injury of 2009, must know better than to allow Barwis to "touch him."
January 1st, 2012 at 5:51 PM ^
Molk tore his ACL. Typically an injure from muscular imbalances.
January 1st, 2012 at 5:59 PM ^
January 1st, 2012 at 6:17 PM ^
ACL injuries typically occur when there is contact with your leg when it is slightly bent so the ligaments are at their weakest point which puts a lot of stress on the ligaments, or when your foot gets caught in the turf when your leg tries to rotate. This could possibly be because of training, but ACL injuries are extremely common because the knee isn't designed to take the punishment that it faces in sports like football. Sure, weak hamstrings could have caused the ACL tear, but it could have also just been because the forces put on his knee were just too severe. I'm not a Barwis lover by any means, I actually like Wellman's training methods more, but it's unfair to put all the blame for injuries on a strength and conditioning coach.
Barwis' training styles aren't that unique. A lot of strength coaches do the same sort of prehab exercises and design their programs in a similar way. His program design similar to the standard NSCA design, although there are some differences. If Barwis' training style was so bad, then why do so many other strength coaches have similar methods?
Lastly, as it was stated previously, his large following of professional athletes speaks for itself, and if he wasn't a good/successful S&C coach, he wouldn't have such a large following and FSU wouldn't have offered him such a huge contract after RR got fired.
January 1st, 2012 at 6:28 PM ^
Not true. ACL injuries occur from different mechanisms and many of them occur from muscle imbalances and lack of proper muscular activation in the glute medius, Maximus & minimus. I know what the NSCA guidelines are and know what they're all about. A strength program is designed to, first & foremost, limit injuries and limit recovery time from injury while increasing strength & power.
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<br>If you look at who he has worked with then you should know that most are from Michigan & West Virginia. Athletes work with a lot of people they are comfortable with and will listen to bullshit some people feed them to make it sound like they know what they're talking about. I've been in the business for a few years now and know a thing or two about training in the area. Listen to his interviews & it's easy to tell he's just talking to talk and says a lot of things that don't make sense.
January 1st, 2012 at 7:41 PM ^
Have you read the Bud Charniga article from a few years back, in which he shared his thoughts after attending a strength seminar featuring several of the area's prominent S&C coaches as presenters? It was actually quite funny. I'll try to dig up the link if you haven't already seen it.
January 1st, 2012 at 7:46 PM ^
I have not. I would like to read it.
January 1st, 2012 at 10:59 PM ^
Charniga is the definition of an oly snob, so you have to take his writings with a grain of salt. Here you go:
http://sportivnypress.com/documents/44.html
http://sportivnypress.com/documents/46.html
Out of curiosity, in what capacity do you work in S&C? I'm a mechanical engineer, but am also a CSCS, and have been freelance training for several years now. I'm not at all fond of engineering and am looking to make a big switch to something more in line with what I love, hopefully sooner rather than later.
January 1st, 2012 at 11:27 PM ^
Those are pr
January 1st, 2012 at 11:32 PM ^
Those are pretty funny reads and true to an extent. I have sat down with Barwis & his staff and he had his assistants talk for him while also mentioning that he didn't want all the publicity he was getting with all his interviews.
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<br>I'm actually in the private sector and have worked with people in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB & Olympians.
January 2nd, 2012 at 9:55 AM ^
"If you look at who he has worked with then you should know that most are from Michigan & West Virginia. "
Oh no! He has clients from places where he worked and lived!
January 2nd, 2012 at 9:49 AM ^
Don't forget Tate Forcier's shoulder injury against Indiana in '09. Obviously Barwis was at fault for having Tate jump in the air to try to cross the goal line and land on his shoulder.
I recall Ruben Riley breaking both thumbs in '05 - clearly Gittleson's fault for not making his thumbs stronger.
January 1st, 2012 at 4:56 PM ^
that occurred while Barwis was at Michigan were injuries that weren't really preventable. There did seem to be some incidences of hamstring injuries, which I think was partly due to the fact that in Barwis' training programs hamstring training was trained with a lot of knee flexion exercises, which are not very transferrable to athletics.
Hip extension exercises are much more specific to the stresses put on the body during sports and in my opinion his exercise choices there my have been part of the reason why those types of injuries occurred. However, there are many factors that can cause injuries apart from the training program the athletes are on.
January 1st, 2012 at 5:07 PM ^
The number 1 indicator to future injury is previous injury and the number 2 indicator of future injury is muscular imbalances. There are a lot of injuries that can be prevented from a S & C program and a lot of those injuries occured under Barwis. Hamstring injuries usually occur because they are being overused and there is a lack of proper glute firing.
January 1st, 2012 at 5:20 PM ^
January 1st, 2012 at 5:28 PM ^
A few people here would probably like to blame Barwis (stained as he is, forever, in their minds by his association with RichRod) for allowing Odoms to accidentally injure T-Wolf last year.
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Here's the serious question: What was West Virginia's injury frequency when he there? Anyone know? I'm not an expert on the subject, and I'm also not sure that I'm reading the opinions of experts here. I'm open to hearing good explanations of why Michigan had it so rough in '10 and whether Barwis can reasonably be tagged with any of that.
January 1st, 2012 at 5:33 PM ^
January 1st, 2012 at 5:31 PM ^
I took a tour of it a couple weeks ago. They have a lot of machines you don't see at most places.
Has anyone else here worked out there?
January 1st, 2012 at 7:10 PM ^
Would probably die
January 1st, 2012 at 8:56 PM ^
I'd love to if I were still living in AA. What are the costs like though? From looking at their website, I get the impression that it's pretty expensive.
January 2nd, 2012 at 12:59 AM ^
gym membership is very reasonable ($30/month), and they have group sessions that aren't too expensive, but individual personal training is pretty expensive($60-100/hour).
$100/hour is with Barwis himself.
January 1st, 2012 at 7:51 PM ^
That's awesome that Barwis has stuck around here and set up shop in Plymouth.
January 1st, 2012 at 9:00 PM ^
So is Barwis joining Rodriguez in Arizona, or staying put in the area?
January 1st, 2012 at 9:40 PM ^
Looks like RR hired someone else for the Arizona position:
Strength coach Chris Allen became Rodriguez's seventh hire of the offseason when he was named Friday;
http://azstarnet.com/sports/football/college/wildcats/arizona-football-…
January 1st, 2012 at 9:56 PM ^
I'm surprised. They seemed to be really tight. Barwis was a WVU grad but had no qualms about leaving there to follow Rodriguez to Michigan. I wonder if they had a falling out.
January 1st, 2012 at 11:12 PM ^
Based on Barwis' congratulatory remarks made to Rodriguez on Facebook, I'd say there was no falling out between them, but rather, Barwis wants to continue to grow the business he just put into place. Since Rodriguez couldn't get Barwis to go to AZ, he grabbed his top assistant from Michigan, as well as Whiteman, who was also at UofM and working under Barwis at the new facility.
January 2nd, 2012 at 9:32 AM ^
Barwis has 2 young kids and just opened his shop in Plymouth not all that long ago, so moving now doesn't make much sense.
January 1st, 2012 at 9:56 PM ^
That's not just "someone else."
Chris Allen coached at Michigan, and the reason you should know who he is is because he was the guy fighting Charles Stewart on the sideline during the 2008 Ohio State game.
It will be interesting to see RR without Barwis, considering:
“He’s my guy,‘’ Rodriguez told the Detroit Free Press in the summer of 2008. “I won’t go anywhere without him.‘’
January 1st, 2012 at 9:16 PM ^
Would Wellman take this as a slap in the face? I am sure he knows that those guys really loved Barwis too, but I imagine Wellman would have plenty of time to help those guys out. Not saying that those kids SHOULD choose Wellman, but it is kind of "telling" perhaps, if those kids think their best shot at getting trained properly for the combine would be with Barwis.
January 1st, 2012 at 9:29 PM ^
Most strength coaches just focus on their team/teams. Players normally go to trainers that specializes in combine training.
January 1st, 2012 at 9:59 PM ^
It's not "telling" of anything.
If you watched Wellman's interview from last January (the only one of him I've seen), he runs about 6 different groups of football players through their weight training every day. That obviously takes a ton of time.
Wellman's first priority is to Michigan's current players as of Tuesday. It's for the best for everyone that the outgoing players train with Barwis.
January 2nd, 2012 at 12:22 AM ^
And yet Barwis trained players like Graham who were entering the draft while he was also in charge of Michigans S&C program. He also trained the NFL guys during their off season. My guess is that after 3 years with Barwis, these players just feel more comfortable with him. Nothing wrong with that, they are both well respected coaches in their field.